


Two Flames

by foxysquid



Category: Tiger & Bunny
Genre: Gen, Secret Identity, judges, references to death, references to mental illness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-01
Updated: 2014-03-01
Packaged: 2018-01-14 04:40:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,525
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1253209
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/foxysquid/pseuds/foxysquid
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Yuri Petrov leads a quiet life of flying, fire, and fairy tales. Two brief character pieces on the subject of Lunatic.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Two Flames

**I.**

He's had a long and tiring morning at court. On bad days, it's more difficult for him to keep his composure. This had been one of those days. He'd caught a few minutes of a documentary about Mr. Legend on one of the networks before he'd left for his daily commute. A laudatory piece, as usual, praising the masked man for his many heroic actions. Heroic. What a joke. Yuri knows the true nature of Mr. Legend's so-called heroism. The staged stunts, the false captures. And at home, his actions had been far worse than that. Once, perhaps, he had been a true Hero, but his later years had turned him into something else altogether. These thoughts set Yuri on edge, make him jumpy. At any moment, he half expects to see the tall, broad figure of his father appear in the periphery of his vision, in spite of the fact that he died years ago.

_Father._

Yuri has had a few cups of tea, but they'd failed to calm him, so he'd left the Administration of Justice offices early. He hadn't wanted to return home right away. His mother's daytime caregiver will be there for another few hours, so there is no need for him to hurry back. Home is no comfort, provides no solace or relief, especially not from that which he most wants to escape: his past. The past haunts his home. His mother's screams and tears, chairs where his father used to rest. The garage was torn down long ago, but Yuri knows too well where it once stood, and he often finds himself drawn to the window that looks out over that patch of land.

_Where father died._

Instead of home, he makes his way to the park, briefcase in hand. He stops to buy a sandwich from one of the more upscale vendors, then looks for a place he can sit to eat. He isn't hungry, but if he doesn't eat, he'll grow sick. He has to keep up his strength. He needs his strength for his real work. As he walks through the park, he is aware of the trees and other greenery surrounding him, the water rising from the fountain and falling into the pool below, making a soothing, liquid murmur, but he doesn't slow to study or enjoy his environment, remains focused on his goal until he finds a suitable bench. It's set away from the most well-traveled thoroughfares, shaded from the sun by the trees. He sits and begins to eat.

Suddenly, he tenses. He'd known it would happen eventually. There's someone sitting beside him, a weight pressing down on the other side of the bench. Yet he'd sensed no approach, as if they'd simply appeared there. He knows that presence.

"Good afternoon, Father." No, he shouldn't have said that. The words, polite yet bitter, had come from him involuntarily. He presses his lips together tightly. He must not say anything else. Part of him knows he is sitting alone. However, although there is no answer to his greeting, another part of him remains sure that someone's sitting with him. A powerful emotion sweeps through him, temporarily paralyzes him. Is it fear, or is it anger? Sometimes the two are the same. Frozen, his sandwich in his hands, Yuri stares fixedly down at the ground before him, as small birds begin to gather around the bench. They cock their heads, gazing up at the bread in his hands hopefully. Finally, with an effort of will, Yuri manages to turn his own head.

_There's no one there._

He sighs, and some of the tension leaves him, if not all. Tension is a constant companion. He glances down at the sandwich, but instead of eating it now, he tears it with his hands. In an oddly violent motion, he breaks it into pieces and scatters them, for the birds to eat. He should eat as well, but he'll have something else later. For now, he'll watch the birds, hopping from place to place, overjoyed by the unexpected bounty.

So easily pleased. And so easily, afterward, they'll fly away. Soon enough, they'll forget that this ever happened. He wonders if anything ever troubles them. He can fly, but what must it be like, to truly fly away? Yuri sits there for a long time, waiting.

**II.**

It's quiet in the basement, and when he closes his eyes, at first, there's not a sound. Silence and stillness surround him, and the light is so dim, his eyelids are enough to block it out. Peace. Nothingness. He sits alone and motionless in his chair, and he is not troubled.

It takes several minutes for the noises to begin. They're distant at first, barely audible. One might mistake them for the house shifting or the pipes faintly protesting their own age. Yet that isn't all they are. It's more than that. They're noises with meaning. Yuri doesn't open his eyes, but he listens. He might not want to, but he can't help but listen. Even if he were to cover his ears, he knows, he cannot block out the noise. It is not the kind of sound that can be blotted out, drowned out, or escaped.

They are the sounds of his memories, of the events that took place here, in the rooms of the house where he was born. Vague at first, that vagueness only draws him further in, concentrates his focus. He must move toward what he hears, but he can do that without leaving his chair. Slowly, his consciousness rises from his body and up toward the ceiling. Up into the rest of the house, and into the past. The sounds coalesce, become identifiable. He hears his father's voice.

_Father._

Calling his name, saying it's time for bed, reading him a story about a knight and a dragon. The dragon breathed fire, and the brave knight slew it. Then the knight and the princess he'd saved were happy together. Happily ever after after all.

_That isn't how the story really went, Father._

He can hear his mother's voice, too. First, her gentle explanations as she taught him how to sew. He'd followed her throughout the house when he wasn't in school, eager to copy everything she did. She let him stir the mix for the cake for Father's birthday. She used to sing as she walked from room to room, lovely little songs in Russian that he can't quite catch the lyrics to, no matter how hard he tries. He doesn't want to hear any more, anything after that, but he can't stop it from happening, her soft voice rising into a shout, the way she'd cried out that day, loudly at first, then hardly at all, until there was only the softer yet somehow more horrible sound of the blows, oh mother.

_The knight tried to slay the princess._

It shouldn't have happened like that, but he can't step back into the past, into the story, to change it. The looming figure of his father blocking out the sun, then bearing down. He'd noticed the bright buttons on his father's uniform, hanging empty in the background, his father no longer wearing it because his father had become a monster. Being a Hero had made him a monster. Who would have expected that? Yuri could smell the blood in the air. What if he'd done nothing in that moment? What would have happened to his mother? You cannot turn a blind eye to evil. You never can.

_The dragon killed the knight._

The scent of blood, of alcohol, of fear, and then, burning it all away, the brightness of fire. From nowhere. Suddenly, when he needed it most, he had power. He could be strong, and it was the duty of the strong to protect the weak. He ran forward and grabbed his father's arm. And then--and then--a confusion of light and heat, his own fire used against him, pressed against his face. Everything so bright. Everything. The stench of burning flesh, and then, for a blessed but short time afterward, after he'd fallen unconscious from the pain, there was nothing. As there is nothing now. Those sounds, the memories, they are no longer real. There is only a man, sitting in a dark room, many years later.

_The princess grew to hate the dragon._

His mother is waiting for him upstairs, still sobbing, no doubt. She'd had another of her episodes, railing at him for what he'd done to Father. He tries not to be angry with her. It isn't her fault, as she'd never recovered, but he finds it difficult to keep his emotions always in check, to control his temper, to keep everything as it should be. It is the duty of the strong to protect the weak. He can do this. He knows he can. That is why he was given this power, why he is what he is. He will cleanse the world.

_And then, what did the dragon do?_

At last, Yuri opens his eyes, and what does he see? He sees what he always sees. He sees _fire_.


End file.
